Luka Lesson (born Luke Haralampou) is a spoken word and music artist of Greek heritage from Australia. Luka’s debut book, “The Future Ancients” is now a best-seller for poetry in Australia twice-over and a part of educational programs from Hong Kong to Melbourne.

Luka has written commissions and performed for the likes of The National Gallery of Victoria, Greece’s pioneer Hip-hop group Active Member, South Africa’s OneBlood Festival and China’s most celebrated living poet Xi Chuan in Beijing. He is also the Australian Poetry Slam Champion of 2011 and Melbourne Poetry Slam Champion of 2010.

Sam Foster is an actor, director, stunt-man and yoga practitioner with a wealth of experience touring and performing both in Australia and abroad.

As a partner in Shock Therapy Productions his works have won Matilda awards and seen successful seasons at the Powerhouse Theatre, Brisbane. His stunt work took him Namibia in 2015 where he worked on the set of Mad Max: Fury Road.

James Humberstone’s output is influenced by his research background in experimental music, and his interest in composing for children and community ensembles. Born in London, Humberstone migrated to Australia in 1997 after completing a degree in composition at the University of Exeter.

After many residencies and a prolific decade of creative works, in 2013 Humberstone completed his PhD and was appointed Lecturer in Music Education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. Today he works in the fields of composition, music education and technology research, as well as experimental music.

Claudia is a visual and performing artist working primarily within the mediums of video and dance. With over ten years experience in the visual arts industry, Claudia is widely recognized as one of Australia’s most dynamic multidimensional artists.

Claudia’s work as a creative videographer has led her to producing, writing, shooting, directing and editing music videos for a wide range of Australian musicians, including numerous collaborative works with well known artists such as Diafrix, Sietta, 360, Mantra, Gossling and Blue King Brown.

Claudia has been commissioned to create video pieces for a number of not-for-profit organizations including World Vision Vanuatu and Multicultural Arts Victoria.

Jordan Thomas Mitchell is an interdisciplinary artist based somewhere between Los Angeles & Beijing. His compositions meld music, story, live performance and film into a focus which reorders default-narrative conventions, demonstrating alternative ways to construct meaning that are at once present and communicative.

A multi-arts project utilising classical and electronic composition, film and the oratory tradition of human culture, Odysseus Live takes the Ancient Greek text of Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ and breaths fresh new meaning into words that were first composed and recited almost 3,000 years ago. The world today has arrived at an era of disparity and displacement on a scale never before seen. The journey of Odysseus, with his tumultuous ocean voyage, is geographically identical that of Syrian refugees arriving today on Greek islands to escape war. The battles faced on a daily basis by humans are equal to the Cyclopes and Sirens of the original story; one we’ve always thought of as a fairy-tale, but now dwarfed under the realities of current human stories of struggle and survival.

These parallels are highlighted and examined throughout Odysseus Live, as film, physical movement and spoken word narrate the story of The Odyssey and the intertextuality examined through Hip Hop. The historical growth of Hip-hop from the United States to every corner of the Earth, has meant that a resurgence in rhyming and telling one’s own story to large crowds has found a new home in the culture of rap and spoken word as a direct need for story-telling in order to survive oppression. We at Odysseus Live respect and gain much inspiration from this lineage of story-tellers, street artists and music makers as much as we do from The Odyssey itself. We recognise that The Odyssey is now a global story of displacement full of localised experiences and are committed to using the mediums of film, dance, word and music to reignite passion, understanding and awareness around these issues.

Imagery used taken from www.fikos.gr
all music and words contained in this website are the property of the creators and cannot be used without permission of the creators
website created by Luka Lesson .2016